Jenna’s jaw dropped and her heart raced and the world felt suddenly brighter and more colorful than it had before. “You do?”
“Yes, I do. Maybe I’m nuts, maybe it’s all too fast, but I don’t fucking care. I know myself and I know when I feel something like this, it’s not typical for me. I love you because you’re amazing, because you make me want things I never knew I wanted, because I have an endless need to know you and learn everything about you—and right fucking now, I need you to go into that warehouse and let me do my job so I can bring you home again. I want to marry you for real. I want to raise Alice with you, and maybe have our own kid too. We can talk about that, but—”
Jenna threw her arms around him and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him with her whole heart. “I love you, too.”
Noah squeezed her as he set her away from him. His eyes were glassy, and he dragged in a breath. His voice, when he spoke, was raspy. “We have to go, Jenna. There’s no more time. Hold onto that thought, okay? I want to explore it fully in the near future.”
“Okay, yes, definitely.”
“Get in the Jeep.”
He stepped back, and she climbed in and pressed the button to start the vehicle. They touched hands one more time, then she closed the door, sniffed away her tears, and backed out of the driveway. Once she was on the street, she waved at Noah. He waved back.
It was all they had time to say. For now.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Noah felt like his heart wasn’t in his body. It was driving down the road with Jenna, and it was with Alice and Maggie. The people he loved were in danger, and there was nothing he could do except wait until the right moment to pull them out of it.
“I was an orphan,” he said to no one in particular. He knew the guys in the other car could hear him too because they were miked up and able to communicate back and forth. “You guys know that. I have a hard time with showing emotion because my sister—who was my foster sister, by the way—and I were abused for five years by our foster family. She was sexually abused by the asshole husband who’s in prison now. The wife is there, too, but she won’t be there as long as he will. There were ten of us in their home, and we were punished with cages and chains and withholding food. It was a prison, and it was hell, and I learned to keep my feelings to myself because nobody was going to fix my life but me.
“I know y’all stuck with calling me Easy when I first joined the team because of the coffee thing—thanks again, Mal, for convincing me that new recruits had to memorize everyone’s coffee order—but I got the name in Special Forces training because I kept saying the Army was easy whenever the guys would ask why I didn’t ever complain about how hard they pushed us. Sleep deprivation, not eating for hours on end, running with a full pack—didn’t matter. It was fucking easy compared to being a kid in that house.”
He clenched his fists and jaw and told himself it was good to say it. Good to share his secrets with the men who were as close to brothers as he’d ever get.
“I never said any of this to you guys because I’ve spent my life burying my feelings down deep or pretending they were a lot less intense than they were. Easy likes it easy, right? No messy entanglements, no chaotic emotion. But I love Alice and I might love Maggie too—and if anything happens to Jenna, I’ll fucking lose my mind. She’s it for me, which I know you guys all get.” Gem, Zany, and Muffin weren’t on the frequency yet, but they would be when they reached the warehouse area. It occurred to him that Bliss was listening because she was part of the computer team, but that was okay.
Mal—crazy Mal—reached over and put a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “We’re going to save her. We’re going to save them all. You guys were there for me when Scarlett needed us. I thought she was probably dead—but she wasn’t. We aren’t going to fail.”
“Thanks,” Noah said, his throat tight.
“Thanks for telling us,” Saint said. “I’m fucking sorry you went through that, but damned glad you’re on this team.”
Noah sucked in a breath. “I feel like a fucking girl right now—no offense, Bliss.”
“None taken, honey,” she said. “Emotions are rough sometimes.”
“I’m not saying they’re bad, not at all, and women are pretty scary when they cry because they’re pissed off, but I don’t want to cry. And I don’t want to feel like my heart is bleeding out all over the place, but this shit is new for me and I’ve realized that I don’t control a damned thing. It won’t take much to break me. I’ll survive if they don’t, but I’ll wish I was dead too.”
“That’s pretty much how it works,” Wolf said. “When you fall in love, it’s fucking amazing. And terrifying too because you no longer own your heart. She does.”
“Just so you guys know,” Bliss said, “you own her heart as much as she owns yours. We die a little bit every time you guys go on a mission. Now, is it too nosy to ask if you told Jenna how you feel?”
Noah couldn’t help but laugh. “I told her.”
“Okay, aaaaand?”
He felt the heat of happiness glowing inside him. “She feels the same.”
“Awesome,” Bliss replied. “I like her.”
“Me too,” Hacker said.
The guys all chimed in, and Noah tried to hold onto the happy feeling he got from thinking about Jenna and how great life would be with her. But the tension in the car notched up as the miles ticked by.
Noah could see the Jeep ahead. They were trailing Jenna at a good distance, but at least he could see the tail end of the vehicle. Hacker had outfitted her with a small microphone, but it wasn’t hooked into the team’s comm system. It was intended to capture the things Fisher said. Bliss would be monitoring the conversation from the car just in case.
“Gem called in,” Saint said in their ears. “Fisher is on the move, and he’s got the hostages with him. No one else in the car, no other cars appear to be following. He’s a lone wolf.”
That was good news. Or would have been if Noah didn’t have a knot in his stomach the size of an asteroid.
Maybe that was normal for the situation since he’d never been so personally invested before. Or maybe it was his gut telling him bad things were coming. He closed his eyes and willed the apprehension away. This was a job, like all the other jobs he’d done.
He had to dig deep, find his focus, and do the work. It was the only way to free his family and secure their future together. A future he’d tried to avoid but now wanted more than he wanted his next breath.
“Getting close to the warehouse,” Wolf said in their ears a short while later. “Let’s get this done like we planned it so Easy can take his ladies home and spend time with them before we gotta take that desert trip.”
“Roger that,” Mal said. “Yippie ki-yay, motherfuckers! Let’s go kick some mafia ass.”
The warehouse where she was supposed to meet Owen Fisher sat at the backend of a complex of warehouses. Chain-link fencing surrounded the compound, but the gate was open and there were no guards. Trucks sat at the loading docks to the first couple of warehouses, loading or offloading, but no one paid attention to a woman in a Jeep.